                              Concept : Nations

 Nations in Empire  provide  a  means  of  grouping  international  relations,
economic priorities, national development of technology, and so on.

Relations between nations are bilateral agreements to allow varying amounts of
cooperation  between countries: diplomatic relations, formal war declarations,
mutual unit basing arrangements, and mutual defense agreements.

Diplomatic relations mainly affect communications and economics.  If you don't
have  diplomatic  relations  with  another nation, the quality of intelligence
estimates decreases, telegrams cannot be exchanged, treaties cannot be signed,
loans will not be made or repaid, and trades cannot be executed.

A formal war declaration breaks diplomatic relations and further degrades  the
level of information returned by intelligence estimates.

Mutual defense agreements allow nations to support each other in time of  war.
The defense agreement is only part of this defense mechanism; to actually sup-
port another nation, the owning nation must explicitly mark units  as  "allied
support" units.

                              Concept : Nations

Basing agreements are also bilateral, and allow other nations to utilize  your
ships and sectors as bases for allied units.  Again, sectors and ships must be
explicitly marked as "allied bases" to actually be used as such.

National orders are unilateral orders to your military organization as to  the
interactions  your nation will have with units of other nations.  These orders
are fairly simple: whether or not to treat military units  of  specific  other
nations as hostile.

See also : declare.

